ZERO DAYS: This is the most powerful film out there this week. And the most current, not to mention most scary. I’d say it’s a must-see. It’s from Alex Gibney who just keeps turning out important documentaries. Two recent ones were about Steve Jobs and Scientology but this one is in the spirit of his Iraq war film, the Academy Award Winner, Taxi to the Dark Side. It too has an alarming story to tell.

Initially it’s about Stuxnet, a computer virus developed by the United States and Israel and unleashed on Iran to confuse its nuclear development program. Officially neither country will admit to it but a host of experts and observers, including David Sanger of the New York Times, a former head of the CIA and the NSA and a couple of malware sleuths describe it in detail.

A woman formerly with US intelligence and thoroughly disguised into an animated figure with an actor’s voice is especially enlightening. Obama okayed its use, Israel activated a more aggressive form against US wishes and that version is now loose. Somebody else is bound to use it and the US has formed a cyber war command to be ready. With that, the film expands into a broad survey of world affairs and modern warfare. It has the history (the US gave Iran its first nuclear reactor) and the frightening vision of the future (power grids, transportation and more could be attacked). Chilling stuff that makes you pray that Trump doesn’t mess around with it too much. (VanCity Theatre, Fri, Sat, Wed and Thurs) 4 out of 5

PATRIOTS DAY: That’s a state holiday in Massachusetts (and Maine) and also the day the annual Boston Marathon runs. The film is a crackling good re-creation of the 2013 event where two low-level terrorists set off a couple of bombs killing three and injuring 264. It doesn’t dwell on the blasts and the carnage, they’re shown only briefly, but shows much more than we’ve ever known about what happened afterwards. The police investigation is re-staged in detail. There’s a mock-up of the scene in a warehouse. People search through videos from security cameras and cell phones. We see the suspects in those pictures as the police identify them. Later we see them get into a huge gun battle on a residential street and one be apprehended in a boat parked in a backyard. We know the bare outline; the new added information is gripping to watch.

Mark Wahlberg plays a cop at the centre. He’s everywhere because he’s a composite of several officers. He’s in the tense buildup to the race, at the finish line when the bombs go off, helping the FBI (with Kevin Bacon in charge), the local police (with John Goodman as Commissioner) and a cop in nearby Watertown (J.K. Simmons), even at a hospital where Michelle Monaghan plays a nurse. And we get more. The two terrorists debate tactics. Police argue about due process and averting anti-Muslim anger. Actual video clips are folded in smoothly and some of the filming was done in actual locations. There’s a bit too much “Boston Strong” jingoism and lines like “You have to fight back with love.” But overall, a respectful treatment. (Scotiabank, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 3 ½ out of 5

LIVE BY NIGHT: Ben Affleck’s fourth film as a director is no Argo, his celebrated best. Instead of riveting, this one is sluggish, overcrowded with plot, not sufficiently focused on any one or maybe a few story lines and too scattered to really grab. The acting is low-key for a gangster film and the few bright spots that come along give bring it only sporadically to life. And watch out for that excessive and bloody gunplay.

Affleck plays a World War I vet in Boston who becomes a petty criminal. He’s good at it and is scolded by his father (Brendan Gleeson, the police chief, but also recruited by the head of the local Irish mafia, whose girlfriend he’s secretly sleeping with. And there’s more. A car accident, the woman lost, three cops dead, five years in prison, and later, now working for the Italian mob, he’s off to Florida to take over the Cuban rum trade and build a casino. Occasionally there’s a great scene, like when he orders a crime boss to get out of town. More often the events are just ordinary. He allies with a Cuban gangster and falls in love with his sister (Zoë Saldana), fights off the KKK and hears the admonitions of a young woman (Elle Fanning) who becomes a morality campaigner. It’s from a novel by Dennis Lehane which means it should have been much more dynamic. (International Village, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 2 ½ out of 5

MOSTLY SUNNY: Here’s a light, frothy documentary by two serious Canadian filmmakers (Dilip Mehta, with his sister Deepa helping out with the script) about a woman trying to go legit. Sunny Leone is a star in Bollywood films with a decidedly different past. She was born in Sarnia, Ont., as Karenjit Kaur Vohra, made it big in the California porn film industry, posed for Penthouse and was named Pet of the Year back in 2003. She had many fans, including it is said, Osama Bin Laden, and went to India to ride that fame into movie stardom.

Apparently, she’s made it, although the film isn’t clear on how big. The clips only show her doing a lot of dancing and writhing. No kissing, though, in line with Bollywood tradition. A co-star says that would be too “intimate” and her husband, who is also her manager and sex-partner in an old California film, says they’re strictly monogamous because they’re quite conservative. The whole film is built on these contrasts. Sunny is eternally upbeat and proud of her life but in one interview tears up at the thought she may have driven her mother to drink. However, that is Shah Rukh Khan glimpsed at one of her premieres. (Park Theatre) 3 out of 5

MONSTER TRUCKS: Here’s conclusive proof, as if you really need it, that if you get story ideas from your four-year old son, use some logic turning them into a movie. That seems to have escaped the former Paramount Pictures president who made this one happen. I mean, a squid-like creature from deep in the earth serving as the engine inside a young man’s truck? It gallops along chased by police cars and a convoy of black SUV’s sent by an oil company. At one point it climbs up on a building and rides and jumps across several roofs. Those scenes are fun. The rest is ridiculous.

It’s not a cartoon, although the director, Chris Wedge, has made some and brings that spirit to this film. Oh and, it was filmed here in BC, in Golden Ears Park and up Kamloops way, three years ago. Lucas Till owns the truck, Jane Levy is along for the ride, and Robe Lowe is the cause. He runs an oil company that drills a bit too deep, in North Dakota by the way, and releases three creatures with tentacles and a taste for oil. Two are in a lab and found to be intelligent. One ends up in Till’s truck. Lowe sends his men to get it back. Till and Levy want to return all three to the earth, Free Willy-style. The chase is exciting but kids shouldn’t be exposed to the bad science. Barry Pepper and Danny Glover are also in it. (International Village, Marine Gateway and suburban theatres) 1 ½ out of 5

Also now playing …

THE BYE BYE MAN: And this week’s horror film that wasn’t screened for critics around here is this tale purporting to discover the source of all evil. It’s a supernatural being that appears when his name, Bye Bye Man, is spoken. I think that’s it. Three college students freshly moved into an old house come across him. The cast has a few surprises, firstly Faye Dunaway as a widow, Vancouver native Carrie-Anne Moss as a detective and local kid Erica Tremblay, younger sister of Jacob Tremblay who was so good in Room, as, well, a young girl. (Scotiabank and suburban theatres)